Apple’s head of services: That’s why TV+ was unplusted

There is no deeper strategy behind Apple’s rather confusing renaming of the video streaming service to Apple TV. The company’s powerful head of services, Eddy Cue, admits this in a podcast interview. In the latest edition of “The Town”, a show that Apple Music competitor Spotify pays for and that revolves around the economic aspects of Hollywood, the manager said that the decision was made “just like that” to simply make Apple TV out of Apple TV+.

At Apple, everyone left out the plus

Internally, “everyone” had already called Apple TV+ just Apple TV. “And then we said, in view of the position we are in today: It’s a great time to do this now.” Cue also does not believe that there will be confusion with the hardware product Apple TV. “Our hardware is called Apple TV 4K for your TV. I think that’s a good thing and the app is called Apple TV.” Apple TV is also called it in third-party devices – such as TVs and streaming boxes – “so I don’t think that’s a problem at all”.

However, Cue did not mention that the Apple TV app not only gives access to Apple’s own streaming service, but also includes other offers from third parties. But in his view, Apple is now acting consistently. The “+” has been used so far because other paid services such as iCloud+ and News+ are also on offer. “But with them we have a free service and then a paid version.”

Apple TV generally established

Cue also assumes that the identity of Apple TV as a streaming service is now generally established. In his opinion, customers are also leaving out the plus. Now, however, Apple itself still has to take action: The website has not yet been adjusted in all places.

According to Cue’s statements, it is unlikely that the Apple TV hardware will now be renamed – it is currently waiting for new models of the streaming box – but the company is now likely to emphasize the “4K” more strongly. Interestingly, customers usually leave this out, simply talking about the multimedia box as “Apple TV”. And that’s exactly what the streaming service is. So the confusion is likely to continue a little longer. However, this is not completely abnormal for Apple: A central example would be a name like that of the MacBook Pro M4 Pro.